It might be assumed that papers in such a collection were from a conference on Faust, or the sixteenth century, but the introduction states that the contributions were “born of an unplanned but fruitful encounter of colleagues in Geneva,” and affords a “highly nuanced view of the world that produced Faust and the stories about him.” The editors have dedicated this impressive volume to their teachers in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Illinois.
In the world of Germanics the Apparat is of importance, and thus I begin with the layout of the book. There are thirteen chapters, some by exceptionally well-known and respected Faust scholars in Europe and the United States. Some are translations, one from a previously published German text, and some represent briefer versions of more extensive scholarship by individual authors. Preceding the entries there are illustrations taken primarily from two manuscripts, the K 437 Rosshirth Manuscript in the Badische Landesbibliothek in Karlsruhe, and Manuscript Q 455 in the Herzögin Anna Amalia Bibliothek in Weimar. In the text the illustrations are in black and white, but the book cover depicting “Doctor Georgio Fausto” dining at an inn, is in color. These facsimiles help us understand just how Faust and his age were depicted prior to and during the early years of printing. Pages 337-359 offer “A Sixteenth-Century Chronology of Significant References to Faust with Parallel World Event.” While there is nothing original in the listing, I found it useful to read what was happening around the world, particularly Europe, at the time of the various publications on Faust, the writings of his contemporaries who most likely helped shape his image, and the overall context of the “Age of Luther and Faustus.” Each paper is followed by detailed notes, for a total of 739 or an average of 57 notes per contribution. The notes are of significance because they frequently include references that do not appear in the bibliography. It is here, for example, that one finds references to work done by folklorists, mostly German but others as well. The “Select Bibliography” covers nineteen pages, with 280 entries, ranging from 1493 to 2011. Only one entry, on page 368, offers a website to the Historical Faustus: http://lettersfromthedustbowl.com/faustusE.html, and one on page 374 references the Karlsruhe manuscript mentioned above. It would be easy to assume that such a work would include mostly older studies of the Faust theme, but in fact 40 percent of the works included in the bibliography appeared between 1990 and 2011. The book concludes with a one-page list of the contributors and their professional affiliations, and sixteen pages of index.
While other European countries were producing such secular writers as Cervantes and Calderon in Spain, Montaigne and Rabelais in France, or Marlowe and Shakespeare in England, Germany was dealing with the divisive Reformation and its aftermath. A figure was developing, however, who would eventually appear, in a bestseller for that age, in the anonymously written Faustbuch of 1587. The collection begins with the historical Faust, proceeds to contemporary figures related to Faust, and then takes up the construction of Faust in legend and literature. Several themes are thus developed. Who was the historical Faust? Who wrote about him before, during and after his time? What and who were the other major themes and figures that appeared in the Faust story?
It is still not certain whether Faust was a historical figure or just a nascent legend. Even his name is uncertain, was it Georg, Georgius, or Jörg, and was he in fact Georg Helmstetter, born in the village of Helmstadt in 1466? Someone by this name began his university studies in 1483 at nearby University of Heidelberg, and subsequently called himself magister, philosopher, and doctor. Did he then become Faustus, taking his name from the Latin, fautor, “the favored one”? Was it Martin Luther who transformed this Faust figure into a wicked magician in league with the devil? Did the Faust legend come to being in Wittenberg, the city of the Reformation? One exhaustive German study of exempla collections, cited in a footnote, provides details about the evolution that took place, beginning with Luther’s incidental remarks about a Faustian figure. But something new had been added by the anonymous author of the Faustbuch, a contract between Faustus and the devil, and in contrast to the saints’ legends so widespread at that time, the protagonist did not repent.
Who contributed further to the developing persona of Faust? Names like Paracelsus, Agrippa von Nettesheim, and Johannes Trithemius, among others, appear repeatedly in the papers. Concepts associated with these writers, like steganography (the art of composing secret messages and transmitting them long distances by occult means), or gabalia (which allows physicians to distinguish between natural things and their secret properties), are the kinds of magic, black or otherwise, that become increasingly associated with Faust. A “Three-Fold World” with Faust as alchemist, astrologer, and magician converge in the developing Faust legends.
Faust himself might be viewed as a theologian gone astray, but his intellectual and emotional quests are certainly more complex. They are described by one contributor as a subtle conflict between faith and critical reasoning, as it was being worked out in the late Middle Ages. Faust is supported in his own reasoning by the familiar figure of Wagner, his famulus, who finally represents a sequel to the Faust stories. When, however, does the figure of Mephistopheles appear? Indeed, when does the Devil make his appearance, and how is he presented in other sixteenth-century works? Marriage and Faust’s great sexual potency appear in the text. He requests Helen of Troy as a permanent concubine, visits a sultan’s harem, and traffics with numerous succubae. The question of “fluid economy” comes into play here, since intercourse was considered a health threat because succubae wanted to procure as much semen as possible. A well-known folklore concept! Is Faust’s hypermasculinity merely a “heterosexual pornography fantasy?” Was this nothing more than pop culture of the day? The final paper raises the question of why Faust in all of his travels never makes it to the New World, indeed never even mentions it. These are topics of the individual papers.
Finally, how has this Faustian character appeared in world literature and the arts since his age? He has made numerous appearances in literature, music and the plastic arts, and each artist builds on the legendary character we find in the first full publication in 1587. It is, however, Goethe’s Faust that has contributed most to these later incarnations.
This is an impressive and important piece of scholarship, filled with questions, as I have attempted to show, and some answers. In one or two places German syntax in English obfuscates otherwise excellent scholarship. I offer only one example: “The slender evidential basis of Foucault’s schema—and its capricious nonrecognition both of an institutionally dominant scholastic-theological paradigm that was visibly in conflict with the épistémè of resemblance and analogy during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and also of emergent elements of ‘classical’ structuring of knowledge within sixteenth-century culture—have rightly received criticism” (77). Too often there are multiple-line one-sentence paragraphs. Still, this is an up-to-date work on Faust, the Faustbücher, the sixteenth century, the themes of good and evil, faith and reason, legend and history. Folklorists interested in the history and folklore of Early Modern Europe will appreciate the collection.
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[Review length: 1228 words • Review posted on September 16, 2013]